Interesting Trivia

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Romeo Must Die's script by Mitchell Kapner had been on the studio's project shelf for nearly a decade. Originally it was conceived to feature a Caucasian star (Sly Stallone was attached to it at one point) and the story involved an Italian mob war against members of Japan's Yakuza. The change to Chinese Triads and African-American gangsters was due to Warner's market research that indicated that Li mostly appeared to an urban audience hence his team-up with R&B sensation Aaliyah along with the insertion of hip-hop music thus creating the hip-hop/martial arts genre.

Half a Loaf of Kung Fu's alternate title is Cunning Monkey.

Like it's predecessor, The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 had action sequences which were filmed on the same sets Chan used for Project A 2. Interestingly, some have even referred to The Inspector Wears Skirts as a female Project A. Intriguingly, there's a parody of Police Story in the fourth chapter of the IWS saga in which Sheila Chan runs down a hill in an attempt to stop a bus but with a very different result than Jackie had!

Godfrey Ho finds Cynthia Rothrock more desirable to work with Sibelle Hu. His perception of Cynth is that she is a very professional American actress - "She's good, arrives on the set on time - really professional. Unlike Sibelle, who was really not professional."

In the beginning, So Close was called Angel's Dust. It was to star Jet Li (hence Kwai's connection to the project on paper and on screen) and it was to feature Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi and Cathy Tsui Chi-kei alongside Vicky Zhao Wei (the former two HK actresses being replaced by Shu Qi and Karen Mok) before it was announced that Jet Li was no longer involved in the project.

Samuel L. Jackson is a big fan of the Wong Jing gambling films and wanted to remake God of Gamblers.

Before deciding on using Whang Inn Sik as the master of the kicking style for Game of Death (this is before he decided whether it should be Karate or Tae Kwon Do), Bruce had planned to approach other similar stylists such as Bob Wall, Chuck Norris and the top Tae Kwon Do practitioner Jhoon Rhee. When Bruce flew in Whang's master, Chi Hon Joi (a seventh-degree black belt in Hapkido), over from Korea, he was disappointed with the caliber of the man's performance.

Lo Wei was once believed by most to be a high-ranking member of the Sun Yi On triad, which according to authorities has 45,000 members.

Lo Mang and Philip Kwok were hired to help train Dru Hill for a music video (for their song 'You are Everything') where they were to be playing a group of vampires with superhuman strength and Kung Fu skills. The stunt co-ordinator was Robert Samuels who can be seen in Sammo's Gambling Ghost and Don't Give A Damn. Mang, himself, appeared in the video.

Cheung Man has played different characters in all 4 GOG films (minus the official prequel).

Conan Lee apparently had a fight scene in Lethal Weapon 4 that was removed (despite the fact that Joel Silver liked the HK films Conan appeared in).

Lo Mang mentioned that Chang Cheh wanted to make a film starring both Lo and Andy Lau, though of course Cheh's death has prevented this (unless there were enough script notes for someone like Lau Kar Leung or John Woo to take over and continue where Cheh stopped proceeding).

Jimmy Wang Yu was charged with murder in Taiwan, 1981. Jackie, in his autobiography, had alluded to Wang having underground connections. He was based in Taiwan and there were rumours that he was something of a big man in shadowy operations on that side of the water. It had been said that the summit meeting between Lo Wei, Wang and the Sun Yi On (the Triad group Jackie was forced to contend with after he left Wei) had gone awry as there was some sort of altercation (involving nasty-looking watermelon knives) that had ended with the gathering being broken up by the police hence the films Jackie appeared in for Wang.

A Better Tomorrow 2 has always been cited as the film that ultimately split the lucrative partnership of Woo and Hark, when in reality it was The Killer that succeeded on that account as Tsui had little interest in producing Woo's script (citing the outdated plot as the key factor). The film was a moderate success in Hong Kong upon initial release but when it proved to be a massive hit on the overseas film circuit and managed to receive critical plaudits (that were rolling in by the dozens), Tsui attempted to claim the film as his own.

Andy Lau's role in God of Gamblers was tailored for Conan because Jing wanted to capitalize on the success of Tiger on the Beat (as well as make a HK equivalent to Rain Man). Wong thought Conan and Chow had good on-screen camaraderie but didn't realize that the two stars thought ill of each other.

The reason why Conan didn't play the role of Little Knife was because Chow Yun Fat didn't want to make another film with Conan after being subjected to his arrogant attitude during the making of Tiger on the Beat (which also explains why Chow didn't appear in the sequel to Liu Chia Liang's film). Conan honestly thought that he was the star of Tiger on the Beat and that Chow was brought along so that Conan's fame would rub off on Chow (when obviously it was the other way round).

Not wanting to alienate HK's biggest star, Wong decided to hire HK's biggest pop star to replace Conan so as to create a new selling point. In doing so, he made a film which (temporarily) became Hong Kong's highest grossing film.

Maggie Cheung's name nearly translates into Rice Miller 6.

Although Leung Kar Yan taught himself to fight from watching Kung Fu movies himself and reading books, his athleticism was much ado with his soccer training hence why his style is irregular. One of his soccer buddies was Eric Tsang who appeared with Leung in a Jing film titled The Last Blood.

Bruce Lee was fight choreographer for The Green Berets (starring John Wayne) and A Walk in the Spring Rain - a love story starring Anthony Quinn and Ingrid Bergman. Despite the material, screenwriter Stirling Siliphant had contrived to include a fight sequence as there aren't many Chinese martial artists!

After working on a slew of not-so-successful directorial efforts in the '80s (Shaolin Temple 3, Tiger on the Beat 2 and Aces Go Places 5), Lau Kar Leung had tried to come up with a project of his own that included a Wong Fei Hung movie with him in the lead as well as a One Armed Swordsman remake that would have starred the then up and coming action performer Donnie Yen. However, in the mind of many, his time had clearly passed and the industry was only ready to offer him supporting character roles, usually martial arts masters of course.

The "snake" character of Wei Pei in The Five Deadly Venoms was actually intended for a woman.

Oliver Stone is a huge fan of HK films (as seen in a photo in Jackie Chan's autobiography where Jackie gave editing tips to Stone during the filming of Operation Condor whilst he was still in his film clothing), thus when taking that into account, it would hardly be a surprise if one was to find that he was inspired by Chang Cheh's The Chinatown Kid for his Scarface script and how he wanted the drug store shootout in Natural Born Killers to be similar to the shootouts featured in Woo's movies, Hard Boiled in particular.

The Wong Jing produced Forbidden City Cops pays homage to a film where Wong was one of the scriptwriters - The Prodigal Son. It pays homage to the assassination scene though transferred to another setting (i.e. a doctor's summit rather than a Peking Opera camp). It's almost done shot-for-shot, for instance there's a shot where the hired killers appear one by one in a straight line, look towards the camera and then towards their destination.

Other shots include seeing their moving legs one-by-one, using each other as pedestals in order to perform somersaults over furniture and a gag involving a soon-to-be killed victim inadvertently interrupting his would-be assassin before the mass slaughter takes place.

Director Sam Raimi is a huge fan of HK films (just like his friend/producer Robert Tapert who was responsible for the Xena TV series and helped Sam insert elements from HK movies into the show). Therefore, it might not come off as too much of a surprise if one was to find out that the idea featured in Spider Man of having a protagonist discreetly elevated above an antagonist whilst the former is bleeding (and whose blood drops whilst the latter senses something is amiss after it drops) came from In The Line of Duty 4 (the scene which leads up to the encounter between Donnie Yen and John Salvitti).

If Johnnie To could make any kind of movie in the States, it would be his take on The Godfather.

Before First Strike was used as a subtitle for Police Story 4, there were many alternate titles such as Simple Mission, Story of CIA and the oddest - Piece of Cake. Interestingly, Jackie didn't like the First Strike choice, thinking it was "too Van Damme."

It was during Lo Wei's The Heroine (Jackie Chan's first stint as stunt co-ordinator and Cheng Pei Pei's comeback vehicle) where the director claimed to have recognized Chan's star potential when he was demonstrating the best way to die on film to one of the student extras. The same cannot be said of Cheng, who readily admits she never dreamed Chan would become the international superstar he is today.

Joel Goss noted in a memorial for the late Eleanor Keaton (widow of screen comic Buster Keaton - Jackie's idol), in an issue of the UK Jackie Chan magazine 'Screen Power', that over the years he knew her, they watched many Jackie Chan films together, which she enjoyed immensely. After watching Operation Condor, she said that Jackie's movements were like those of a dancer, and she should know. She had been a contract dancer at MGM during the 1930s, when she met Buster.

Hell'z Windstaff is based on a comic book series known as the Jademan Comics.

Sammo was one of the directors for Project A, besides being the main stunt co-ordinator. The decision was due to the not-so-big success of Jackie's Dragon Lord plus this film had a bigger risk not so much due to its new story and historical setting, but because of the burly weight of responsibility thrust upon Chan's shoulder.

A dub of Hapkido exists where the word Hapkido is very badly dubbed on whenever Angela Mao and co. say Kung Fu. A fan recalled watching Lady Kung Fu in the cinema back in April of 1973, New Jersey at the Loews Theater. He distinctly remembers them saying Kung Fu instead of Hapkido.

Bewilderingly, Jackie was the one who initiated the collaboration between himself and James Glickenhaus for The Protector. After seeing Glickenhaus' The Exterminator and Code Name: The Soldier, Chan thought this might be the right director to work with. Glickenhaus' opinion of Hong Kong cinema: "I've seen a lot of Hong Kong cinema and I think it's very interesting, terrific stuff - but it doesn't have a chance in America."

Michelle Yeoh once said that she had a fun time working on Jing's Holy Weapon (a.k.a. Seven Maidens). She said that she got the chance to work with all these top HK actresses and it was a good experience to do something that was not serious all the time. Wonder Seven, however, is a film she regrets making.

What Bey has to say about the man formerly known as Lloyd Hutchinson:

"I first met Conan in Hong Kong way back in the '80s and despite my usually unfailing personal charm, we just did not get along. I find him much changed and for the better. I wish could we have been friends in the old days, I tell him. Me too, he says, ruefully. Lee seems to be in good health and says he is planning a comeback."

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Wheels on Meals is almost uncut, save for a shot where Biao uses the knife to cut him self loose (so he can let loose) in the finale.

Cynthia Rothrock almost became the main person Jackie fights at the end of Armour of God but turned it down due to Jackie recuperating (contrary to turning it down because she preferred the more substantial role in Righting Wrongs). It would have been the perfect icing to the cake and as a way to make up for the lack of martial arts action in the film i.e. to go from fighting a mob to fighting a few then eventually a one-to-one encounter.

It's been said that Jeet Kune Do expert John Ladalski (the bald monk) was initially going to be fighting Chan in the finale but due to time restraints (caused by the infamous incident), the showdown had to be scrapped.

Back in the early '70s, Johnny Wang Lung Wei was known to have expressed the desire to challenge Bruce Lee (which may say something about his level of skill and ego ) before the man's death put an end to such an aspiration.

HK cinema fans may note that some of the music heard in American Shaolin can be heard in Tai Chi 2 (originally titled as Tai Chi Master or Tai Chi Boxer as the title it was released under in the UK) which, of course, was directed by Yuen Woo Ping. This is because the composer for both films was Richard Yuen Cheuk Fan, who also composed scores for such classic films like High Risk, Iron Monkey, License To Steal and Wicked City (Tsui Hark's adaptation of the popular anime). He even worked on the soundtrack for Brandon Lee's one and only HK movie Legacy of Rage. Music was also taken from the infamous Island of Fire.

There is a Korean version of Warriors Two which has extra scenes that were shot for the Korean audiences due to the film being a Korean co-production.

The music for King of the Kickboxers was scored by Richard Yuen (who worked on such classics like Tiger Cage 2, Once Upon a Time in China 2, Swordsman 2 and 3). Some of the music cues were borrowed from the work he did on In the Line of Duty 4.

Ben Lam's attire in High Risk is not just a nod to Street Fighter's Guile but the villain from Chuck Norris' Invasion U.S.A. as can be confirmed when you consider that both Jing's film and Joseph Zito's film contain scenes involving a school bus with a bomb attached to it.

Jackie's short hairstyle for Armour of God was initially approved by Raymond Chow as he thought that the '70s bowl-type hair would not suit this type of film.

The Grand/Main Wizard/Monk in Armour of God (played by Ken Boyle) used to own a carpet shop in Kowloon. The castle wall that can be seen in the beginning of Armour of God can be seen in a '70s Hammer film To the Devil...a Daughter . The exterior location that passes for the main headquarters of the evil cult can be seen in the Clint Eastwood World War II adventure Where Eagles Dare.

A German print of Armour of God reveals 3 goofs due to the lack of crops Jackie had used to hide them. The first one occurs during the opening sequence where a clack is revealed. The second one occurs during the finale where Jackie can be seen landing, rather graphically so, on a mattress and the third one occurs when Jackie is meant to be landing on the hot air balloon as it's supposedly up in the air (we can see a tree in the bottom corner of the screen).

The actor who played the sleazy bespectacled lawyer in the first two Police Story films (Charlie Cho Cha Lei) was in the Jackie Chan parody High Risk as Frankie Lone's manager.

There's a continuity error in Way of the Dragon. If you remember at the beginning of the film where Bruce was waiting at the airport, there's a woman with a black jacket, pink shirt and dark permed hair who's talking to an acquaintance. After when Bruce leaves and goes into a cafe located quite further away from where he was standing, you can see the woman in the background of the cafe (sitting somewhere behind Bruce) with no black jacket on her nor her fellow acquaintance.

It's been said that the events in The Big Boss was based on a true story (one that was probably as exaggerated for the big screen as another biographical thriller - Walking Tall). Allegedly, in Bangkok, there lives a statue that the townsfolk refer to as the "Chinese Big Brother". Legend has it that many years ago, the man (also called Cheng Chao An), whom the statue was modeled after, had done an incredible thing.

Wong Jing paid homage to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs in the scene where Valerie Chow dances with the machete with music playing in the background as she relishes the mere thought of participating in a macabre act of violence.

During shooting of Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee shot a short film that has him demonstrating a few forms and moves as well as some Cha Cha. A friend of his borrowed the short film but never returned it.

Sonny Chiba was initially meant to play Whang Inn Sik's role in Way of the Dragon but Sonny didn't want to be Bruce's punching bag (likewise with Joe Lewis in correlation to the role played by Chuck Norris). However, Sonny still wanted to make films with Bruce and the latter agreed that the film wouldn't be enough for Sonny to shine. Also, Bruce figured that the film wouldn't fare too well in Japan if Bruce had beat one of their idols. In retrospect, Sonny actually wrote an article where he was very forthcoming in regretting passing up the chance to work with Bruce.

Jing's influence on the Hong Kong film industry is greater than what people think (which is saying a lot since quite a few respected biographers point this out) as he mentioned in a German online interview that he's produced many Hong Kong films where he wasn't credited as producer (he doesn't want to come off as being too self-important and hold responsibility for the quality of many films or something to that effect) including Ringo Lam's Full Alert and Stephen Chow's Lawyer Lawyer among many others.

In High Risk, the cameraman wearing the baseball cap (in the scene where Frankie Lone is shooting a Fist of Fury-inspired fight) was Andrew Lau.

Billy Chow's hair in High Risk was made to look similar to Van Damme's from Hard Target.

Yasuaki Kurata (who became a star in Japan long before Sonny) was a personal friend of Bruce Lee. The latter of whom gave Kurata a pair of plastic nunchakus, which he claims to still have to this very day. He was even trying to get Bruce and Sonny to meet each other to discuss a possible film project but Lee supposedly died three days before the meeting could take place.

Donnie's musical background lead him to being the composer for Wing Chun. Wing Chun is also notable for being the film where he had fallen out with Ping.

So meticulous was costume designer Emi Wada for Zhang Yimou's Hero, she used no less than 54 shades of colour when the red outfits were created. Robin Shou, for some unknown reasons, turned down the role of Long Sky (which would end up going to Donnie Yen).

Sammo Hung originally going to be play Chieh Yuan's part in Game of Death until Bruce finally opted to have Sammo play one of the other accomplices. Bruce was to have four accomplices altogether.

John Woo was the assistant director, among many other films of the era, for Chang Cheh's The Boxer From Shantung.

Jing uses the vertigo shot in a selection of films - it's become his trademark like Woo with slow motion and Wong Kar Wai with stop-printing. The way he uses it is either during a revelation of a plot point or a startled reaction from one of the main characters. He has used it in God of Gamblers 3: Back to Shanghai, Royal Tramp, City Hunter, Kung Fu Cult Master, Return to a Better Tomorrow, High Risk and God of Gamblers 4: The Return.

Betty Ting Pei drew an uncanny resemblance to Bruce's college heart-throb Amy Sanbo, which could explain Bruce's attraction to her.

Yu Rong Guang was originally considered for handling the action scenes in Zhang Yimou's Hero and it was through Jet Li that Yu got the chance but Yu felt his choreography style was too traditional thus turned down the offer, so it got passed to Stephen Tung followed by Tony Ching.

By the time Way of the Dragon came out, Bruce was in an almost unprecedented position for any movie star, let alone a Chinese one. He was potentially the highest paid actor in the world; he could work in Europe, the United States or Asia. He was besieged with offers that continued to arrive daily. Film producer/director Carlo Ponti cabled Bruce from Italy with an offer of 'a large sum to be determined' to star in a film with Ponti's wife, sex icon Sophia Loren . He was offered US $ 2 million to make two Kung Fu movies for a Hungarian producer. Bruce even turned down an offer from MGM to make a picture with Elvis Presley - the king of Kung Fu together with the king of rock 'n' roll...would have been a riot!

The Way of the Dragon wasn't that much of a box office success as it didn't make HK $ 5.5 million. It didn't even make HK $ 5 million in HK alone (US $ 1,060,000) which was Bruce's boastful prediction to the press. The box office gross receipts fell far short of Bruce's bold predictions, netting a measly US $ 179,000 profit throughout Southeast Asia, though it just about covered the US $ 100,000 budget and made more money than The Big Boss and Fist of Fury.

Rather than concede that the film was a box office disappointment, Bruce and Raymond Chow reported to the press that the film's grosses had surpassed Lee's earlier prediction. Although The Way of the Dragon initially failed to attract a reputable international distributor, when Raymond announced that the picture had grossed over HK$ 5,000,000 in HK alone, independent producers from around the world again began to take notice.

Another Wong Jing trademark - he likes to trick the audience into thinking the film is over when it's not as a way of strengthening their attention and making things less predictable e.g. the endings of City Hunter and Return to a Better Tomorrow feature shots where the camera is being pulled further into the distance away from the action into an aerial shot prior to concluding with an additional scene.

Speaking of Jing and endings, both Royal Tramp and Kung Fu Cult Master are Wuxia-adapted films which feature open endings concerning characters (who are, in fact, doppelgangers) played by Cheung Man.

Bruce Lee's first serious girlfriend was Amy Chan, who later became famous in the East as film actress Pak Yan. When Bruce returned to Hong Kong in the summer of 1963 it had been five years since he had been away. During that time, Pak Yan had featured in one picture after another. She told him she that she was to play 'a bad girl'. She wanted to know if Bruce would be able to help her prepare for the part. Over the following weeks, he helped her prepare several times. This kind of mirrors what Jackie had done for his future wife Joan Lin Feng-Jiao when he helped her to prepare for a film which involved stuntwork (this was during the making of Project A).

Wong Wong, who plays Wong Fei Hung invPing's Heroes Among Heroes, is actually a fellow student and friend of Jet from their days at the Beijing Wuxia school. Wong Sau Lin, who plays the leader of the Five Lotus sect, is also from the same Wushu school.

One film of Bruce Le, Cobra, had actually stolen a Simon & Garfunkel tune entitled 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'.

In God of Gamblers 2, Chow Yun Fat has a cameo appearance at the end of the film.

For the scene in Cradle 2 The Grave where Li takes on 15 opponents in a no-holds-barred contest, the filmmakers drafted in several Ultimate Fighting Champions who were willing to shed (real) blood for the camera.

Donnie gave the deposit money back to Wong Jing rather than make any more films for him (i.e. after Saint of Gamblers and Satan Returns).

By the time it was 2nd March 1973, Shaw's offer to Bruce Lee (in order to lure him away from GH) was a modern action epic "to be made with great care" from April or May (as it turned out Enter the Dragon was completed on May 6th). Run Run named the director as Chor Yuen, who had been Bruce's close friend since childhood.

Around about the same time, Raymond Chow confirmed that GH was trying to bring together Bruce and former Cantonese actress Siu Fong-fong (a.k.a Josephine Siao from Jet's The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk), the latter of whom was returning to the limelight around this time after studying at Seton Hall University based in New Jersey, USA (graduating with an honours degree in Communications - ironic considering that she was partially deaf ever since the age of 2). Raymond said preliminary talks between both sides had so far turned out favourable.

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Joe Lewis, infamous Karate champion, was originally going to play Chuck Norris' part in Way of the Dragon but he declined as he felt that in this film Bruce was aiming to show that the Oriental martial artist was superior to the Caucasian. Lewis claims that Bruce wanted to cast him as 'a big, strong, muscular, blue-eyed, blond-haired, all-American punch bag'. But Bruce countered that the problem was finding Western martial artists (who were almost always of bigger physique) who were fast enough to fight him convincingly.

Bruce said that he asked Chuck Norris to appear in Way of the Dragon because Norris was one of the few martial artists who was fast enough. Bruce observed that he had worked on his own speed because a smaller man who can swing faster hits as hard as a heavier man who swings slowly. 'And besides', he added, 'you can't keep fighting midgets.' Joe Lewis obviously felt that the power of the stronger and heavier Occidental martial artist would ultimately prevail over the speed of the lighter Oriental martial artist, thereby he declined to act to the contrary.

Lewis continues: 'Bruce knew that he was asking me to get involved with a movie in which I got my butt beat by a little 128-pound Chinese guy who had never been in the ring'. A succinct comment from Bruce's mother shows that Joe Lewis was not so far off the mark. Grace Lee recalls: "Bruce told me, 'Mom, I'm an Oriental person, therefore I had to defeat all the whites in the film.' I don't believe he had ever mentioned this to Chuck Norris."

Despite Luc Besson being a producer and co-writer for The Transporter, he was the director for all the film's diving scenes as he is more experienced when it comes to being an underwater cameraman.

The Wong Jing-scripted Shaw Bros. Kung Fu flick 'Treasure Hunters' was said to have been a huge inspiration for break-dancers around the world during the early 80s.

The origins of the first Wong Fei Hung film 'The True Story of Wong Fei Hung' (1949) were rooted during a particular event where film director Wu Pang was riding the cross-harbour ferry with a noted local composer. He read a story in the Kung Sheung Daily News in which it was claimed that the composer had been a student of Wong's. The man himself denied this but the incident stuck in Wu's mind. He began researching the character and subsequently directed said film.

Kwan Tak Hing's casting as WFH had the seal of approval of the great man's widow, Mo Kwei-lan, who claimed that Kwan looked just like her late husband. During the turbulent post-war years, Kwan Tak Hing's interpretation of the role, a stern Confucian patriarch, was warmly received by the Hong Kong audience that had survived the horrors of the Japanese Occupation. Of the 76 'classic' Fei Hung movies, Kwan Tak Hing starred in 74 (70 were in black & white and 4 were in colour).

In two films "How Wong Fei Hung Redeemed Haitong Monastery" Parts 1 & 2 (both made in 1953), the title role was played by Pak Yuk Tong.

Originally, Darren Shahlavi's role in Tai Chi 2 wasn't meant to have been the lead villain as even though he showed Yuen Woo Ping a few kicks and various other techniques, he wasn't sure what he could and couldn't do but Darren told him that he could do anything so that's when his role become bigger. So as filming progressed and Woo Ping saw him in action, it eventually went from small gweilo henchman to the principal bad guy.

Donnie Yen turned down the Chin Siu Ho role in Ping's Tai Chi Master.

Wheels on Meals' international success brought to light some curious quirks common to Chinese films that find their way to the West. Besides the title change, madcap humour, Cantonese speaking Westerners and bizarre atmosphere; Wheels on Meals brought to light a multiple choice option for character's names.

A good example of this can be found in Bullet in the Head, Waise Lee's character is called Paul but one reviewer saw a print of the film where his character was named Vincent and there was a German print where his name was Tom. In the case of WOM, despite most prints of the film listing him as David, there were articles promoting the film (i.e. in it's time of release) where Biao was referred to as Jimmy, even though the Americans working on the film were told to call him Bill.

In the case of John Woo's The Killer. The dual protagonists are given various names that employ their dynamic in different versions. This is because John had many ideas as to how their conflict can be conveyed under a humourous light. The names were "Tom & Jerry" (Woo's favourite ), "Mickey Mouse & Dumbo", "Numb-nuts" & "Butt-head ", and "Shrimphead & Runt" (although runt was something else but had to get changed due to distributors not wanting to put off people with obscene language ).

Biao was called Jimmy (as in Jimmy Yuen) because there came a time when Golden Harvest were eager to market Bill as the next Jackie.

The director of Golden Eye (Martin Campbell) saw Hard Boiled and wanted Kwok to play a character similar to Mad Dog in Golden Eye. Kwok had received a phone call from the 007 production office based in England but he couldn't understand what the other person was saying and the only words he could decipher were "James Bond, 007" so he assumed that they wanted him to play Bond.

He had an English guy ring up the production office and it turned out that Martin was really keen to have Kwok play one of Bond's nemeses. Despite being honoured to be chosen, he had to decline since the role required him to speak English. The communication between him and the English speaking crew would have been impossible.

The director of Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode), however, kept Kwok in mind and wanted him to play a Chinese speaking part (General Chang) as well as be the stunt arranger for the scenes in Hong Kong involving Michelle Yeoh's character, so he naturally accepted the offer.

The tune, which accompanies the scene which is a lead-up to Sammo's first fight with Leung Kar Yan in The Victim, came from a horror movie named It's Alive 2: It's Live Again . Contrastingly, the latter flick features a scene in which the female protagonist is watching Enter the Dragon in a public theater.

In reverse to his reception by Western film critics, Wong Jing is highly recommended by his fellow peers in Hong Kong. Two of which are Angie Cheong ('Body Weapon' and 'A True Mob Story') and Yvonne Yung Hung (a.k.a. "That girl in 'Chinese Torture Chamber' who gets a whipping").

Angie Cheong's opinion on Wong Jing: "He's a very nice man. Always willing to listen and let you come up with some ideas yourself. Although almost all of the time he is right anyway! He is a great movie maker and I enjoy working with him very much."

Yvonne Yung Hung's opinion on Wong Jing: "It was a real good experience. I heard that he used to watch like five or six films a day, people used to think that was a little crazy but on set you could see that he was a very clever man. I enjoyed working for him".

Tsui Hark was extremely unhappy with The Killer and wanted to have it completely recut. For example: Tsui felt that the focus of the movie should be on the cop instead of the killer. Therefore he wanted the film to start with the scene that introduces the cop. The shootout in the restaurant, during which the killer blinds Sally Yeh was to be completely cut and only inserted in flashbacks later in the movie.

Neither Woo nor editor David Wu were going to reedit the film to Tsui's demands and due to a tight schedule (The Killer was going to premiere in Taiwan in a short time and some 100 cinemas had already booked the film), Hark didn't have the time to mess with the film. The Killer was a huge success when it premiered in Taiwan, which made Hark so furious that he (allegedly) threw things out of his office window.

Although he doesn't receive screen credit, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow was based in part on a screenplay written by Chan. The basis of the story (training to fight Hwang and Roy) was already conceived for when Alexander Fu Sheng was meant to be the star of the project. Fu's contract with Run Run Shaw turned out to be too expensive for the company to buy out so director Ping suggested they use Jackie and the rest is history.

Sammo had intended his role as Chan Wing in The Victim for Jackie but the studio wanted to go with Sammo. Jackie's legal connection to Lo Wei meant that the buy-out clause (or lending price) would be more than paying Sammo to act. The studio felt more comfortable with Hung because he was established as a star before Chan and had no record for starring in flops.

In Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, besides the infamous injury where Jackie lost some of his teeth (including a capped tooth), there were other notable injuries. Roy Horan (the Russian priest) had dislocated his shoulder while fighting Chan but finished filming despite having a useless arm albeit with the use of a stunt double in certain shots. Jackie's arm was accidentally slashed by Roy's sword that should have had a blunted edge. Blood went everywhere and Chan fell down screaming...whilst the camera kept rolling.

Conan Lee was the fight choreographer for Undercover Brother and he did a rip-off of Rumble in the Bronx called Rumble in L.A. (mainly known as Carjack).

The final fight scene between Jackie and Hwang in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow is cut. Just to establish the scene leading up to the excised segment - Hwang's character tells Jackie that he will have his teeth and jumps up in the air and hits him in the mouth. After that, the shot goes from Jackie's clothes being intact to them being torn and his body scratched before adopting the cat claw technique. There has to be an uncut Taiwanese version available because an American Kung Fu movie fan remembered seeing a much longer fight when it premiered in the U.S. back in '82.

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The original script Keith Strandberg had written for No Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder had Loren's character as a naïve fighter who goes on a character-building journey but Roy Horan changed the character to be more of a macho action movie stereotype (to tie the film in with Rambo). The script was very philosophical but Roy changed it to make it more gung-ho.

In 1995, Michelle sustained her worst injury when starring in Ann Hui's film about a stuntwoman - Ah Kam. It is a more dramatically flavoured role but things went wrong during the filming of what was considered by Michelle to be not a very difficult stunt. In an 18 foot fall Michelle landed from a wrong angle and the accident nearly cost her life. During the shooting of this sequence, the story required Michelle's character to get pushed off from a freeway overpass. First Michelle succeeded a 60 foot jump for a long shot. But things went wrong when they were shooting with a lower bridge for a close-up shot.

This time it was an 18 foot bridge and there were some cardboard boxes and mattresses to soften her fall. But the force of being pushed made her out of balance. Instead of landing on her chest as planned, she landed on her head and her legs went over her head. Her personal assistant (Philip Hennell) recalls that "She had basically folded herself in half backwards. If she hadn't been as flexible as she was, she would have probably have been maimed or killed." She suffered deep-tissue bruising and a cracked rib.

The fall also worsened her old spinal injury (which she received during a ballet practicing lesson at her college years). Ah Kam director Ann Hui went to the hospital to see Michelle. "She was in a neck brace," says Ann Hui, "She said 'I'm too old. I slipped. It was inconvenient for all of you. It was all my fault. I ruined your shot'." Ann burst into tears by Michelle's bedside. "Nothing was worth having her injured like that." That was on October 13th, 1995. Michelle spent 3 weeks in hospital before returning.

But for nearly half a year afterwards, she couldn't stand or sit for too long. Some post accident scenes are actually shown at the end credit part of the film which was released in 1996. It's not so co-incidental then that in her next film after that, the historical drama 'The Soong Sisters', she had a purely dramatic role. Directed by Mabel Cheung, the film was made in 1996 before being released in 1997. She was nominated as the Best Supporting Actress (Hong Kong Film Award) for her remarkable performance.

After working with Asian action directors, Steven Seagal tried to get Nu Image to purchase the rights to Ong Bak and re-shoot sequences with him playing Tony Jaa's teacher! What an ego. We should be thankful that Luc Besson got in there. It's still related to Chinese movies though as he's become the next U.S. action star (after Van Damme) to work with HK filmmakers on a regular level. Dion Lam was the martial arts director for Exit Wounds, Hung Yan Yan was the martial arts director for Half Past Dead and Ching Siu Tung had the (dis)pleasure of having to direct Seagal in his U.S. debut!

Chow Sing Chi said he'd "love to do a Shaolin Soccer 2 but there are copyright problems." It was because Shaolin Soccer was a co-pro between Stephen's company and Universe (HK) therefore there were some issues after the film was released.

The scene in Police Story of the man figuring out if his car will fit in a parking space and then Jackie comes screeching down in his own car to steal it from him, is worth noting as the man is Michael Lai; who happens to be the composer of many of Jackie's movie theme songs. Michael and Jackie are co-owners of the Pink Mau Mau club where Michael is the musical director. Jackie will occasionally play the bongos with the house band at the club.

At first, Tsui Hark wanted a man to play the transsexual Asia the Invincible for Swordsman 2, but later decided to cast Brigitte Lin - a move, which according to Hark, "virtually everyone, including the author (Louis Cha)," was vehemently against.

In Police Story, Jackie was not the person on the motorbike as it speeds through the glass display in the mall. The credit for this daring stunt goes to the late great Taiwanese stuntman and actor Blacky Ko (Ko Sau Leung) who coincidentally had performed motorbike stunts in a previous Chan film - Wheels on Meals.

With the cross-cultural mindset, Steve James was briefly considered to be the black assassin in Righting Wrongs as Raymond Chow was eager to capitalize on the success of American Ninja. Ste Jim would have made for a far more intimidating (as well as charismatic) nemesis against Biao in Righting Wrongs). Steve was usually the best fighter in his films. His bit with the broadswords in American Ninja 3 was the only scene I liked in a film which I thought was a step down from American Ninja 2.

An amusing coincidence concerning the connection between the stars of American Ninja is that Steve was was in Tom Hanks' first film, He Knows You're Alone, in an early sequence where he and his on-screen girlfriend are questioned by a detective about a murder. Similarly, prior to doing American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff was in Bachelor Party.

The relevance here being that after the success of Police Story, Jackie Chan was due to make 'Singapore Sling' with Tom Hanks. It was going to be another action comedy but it fell through due to their various work commitments. Singapore Sling was due to be made around '87 (the same year as when Police Story played at a New York film festival and received subsequent international success).

Here's what American Ninja's Steve James had to say about Jackie Chan...

"I don't like getting beat up much in films but Jackie could beat me up anytime. My first influence was Bruce Lee, then I saw Jackie afterwards and it was entirely different. When people ask me who I think is the best action star, I don't say Stallone, I don't say Schwarzenegger, I say Jackie. He's my influence, I learn from him, that's why I'm here."

On the now defunct Fist of Wine site, there had been a review of Police Story 2 where the reviewer gave a synopsis of a completely different version i.e. it had nothing to do with the three terrorists and it was considerably more violent. The tone of the film was very dark (and more bigger in scope) as Jackie felt it would be more up-to-date to have a police thriller that was akin to a Ringo Lam film. Raymond thought the film would only work in certain markets where there was an audience for such a film. Presumably, it's available in Thailand and the Philippines.

There were actually seven directors instead of six working on Swordsman. Besides King Hu, Tsui Hark, Raymond Lee and Ching Siu Tung; Ann Hui, Andrew Kam and Yuen Wah also worked on the film.

Benny Lai - one of Jackie's stuntmen who plays the terrorist with the hearing impairment in Police Story 2 - was taught by a teacher for the deaf on how to use sign language for his role in said film. Benny's infamous bicycle kick in the movie was done by using wires. Because of the fluidity that they needed in the movie, they decided to use them. Benny is certainly more than capable to do this kick without using wires...even to this day. The wires just made it look much better on screen.

Cecilia Yip was originally going to play the role of Kiddo in Swordsman 2 before being replaced by Michelle Reis, who claims that Brigitte Lin is her all-time favourite actress.

In Police Story 2, the explosives which were thrown around from the small bags are really minuscule and very, very tiny firecrackers. They are about the size of a 'pinkie' fingernail and were purchased in Macau. If they wanted the firecrackers to catch fire when it exploded, petrol or paraffin oil was spread onto whatever object needed the effect. The firecrackers were so small that if they exploded on someone's skin it would not injure them.

On the making of Swordsman 2, Ching Siu Tung said "We tried something new in every action scene, like Brigitte Lin's Zhang Feng (palm power). In other films, Zhang Feng causes only an explosion but I tried disintegrating an entire person."

The fracas between Sammo and Mark Houghton in Skinny Tiger & Fatty Dragon was a lot longer. Sammo hits a few more opponents with his nunchakus and faces off against Mark, swinging his nunchakus at him. Mark shrugs his shoulders, Sammo drops the sticks and the fight begins. Mark gives Sammo a few nice kicks and punches before knocking him down to the floor a few times (you can see the bruises on Sammo's face later). Sammo gets up and changes his style, kicks Mark and comes in with a flurry of punches, which is where the fight starts on the HKL version (and the HK DVD).

The longer melee was more in keeping with the tone of the bout between Bruce and Chuck in The Way of the Dragon, which is what this fight was trying to emulate (ala Enter the Fat Dragon). Mark was interviewed when the film came out and said he was very disappointed when he went to the premiere in Hong Kong only to find that half of his fight was missing. He saw the same Cantonese version that can be seen on the HK and UK discs. Once again, the Taiwanese edit provides the source for the longer cut.

In the original ending for Romeo Must Die, Jet and Aaliyah kissed rather than hugged but it was cut. It wasn't due to the controversy of it being an inter-racial kiss or in keeping in line with Jet's past screen image but due to the awkwardness of this taking place after his father's suicide thus it was decided that Han (Jet's character) should take it slowly with Trish (Aaliyah's character) i.e. do a hug first and maybe leading into a 'real' relationship later.

It was actually Jet's (rather than Corey's, Mitchell's or Andrzej's) idea to pick up Aaliyah and guide her fists as his "weapon" against Francoise Yip's character (Chinese biker chick) due to his philosophy of not "being ungentlemanly" by hitting women.

The Hong Kong parts of Police Story 3: Supercop were filmed all day in the New Territories.

Sibelle Hu was "awarded" the Golden Banana in 1995 - given for the Worst Actress in 1994.

The warehouse fight scene in Rumble in the Bronx took 20 days to film, with Jackie having to teach the local crew how to fight "Hong Kong style".

There was a project that was being developed for both Jackie Chan and Wesley Snipes titled 'Confucius Brown' in which they'd play long-lost brothers but it never came into fruition as Jackie had problems with the script. Jackie's schedule and Wesley's ended up getting crossed up, so it never happened. Wesley jokes that "In it's rebirth, it turned out to be Rush Hour." Though despite the unofficial resurrection of the project, it was heard by Jackie that 'Confucius Brown' might be back on track again - with Michelle Yeoh playing the role of Wesley's sister.

Referring to the making of PS 3, Stanley says:

"People had seen Police Story 1 & 2 and this was going to be the same thing - some people coming from China to rob jewelery stores. I told Jackie there is nothing I can do to make it special. The story is still happening in Hong Kong, we have limitations in shooting and the story doesn't feel fresh. Can we make it more international?" Tong successfully pitched the notion of going to Malaysia, and rewrote 80% of the script, turning the jewel heist into a heroin smuggling operation.

Venom star Phillip Kwok was the primary action director of PS 3: Supercop. He was also in the film (he reportedly had a vicious fight scene with Chan). He had apparently shot some great sequences but, bafflingly, Stanley Tong wanted them all left out of the finished product! This led to a punch-up with Stanley Tong and Phillip left pondering why he should work on the set if his footage wasn't being used. As a result, his role was left out. Don't forget that besides the Venoms films, Kwok was one of the action directors for Tiger Cage 2 and A Chinese Ghost Story as well as being the main (and only) action director for Hard Boiled so who knows what was cut.

One of Buster's older movies had Buster surviving a wall crash around him as he stands in a space where a window of the wall would normally be fitted. His widow said that Buster would have approved of Jackie's making use of the idea and raising the stakes yet again, at the end of Project A 2, with his character running down one wall only to have the other crash down around him. Eleanor thought Jackie might be a little nuts, just like Buster and his friend / co-star Roscoe Arbuckle.

When Bey Logan called Jing a great director on the Prodigal Son audio commentary (when noting the screenwriters working on the film "...and the legendary Wong Jing who became a great director in his own right" ), he later said (when I saw him in Hong Kong) he couldn't remember saying that and assumed that he must have been feeling generous that day! Maybe because others were there (like Black Mask director Daniel Lee) and because of what happened on Colour of the Truth (Jing and the other director weren't too friendly with the Western staff - more akin to the American music video director Samuel Bayer in politeness).

For PS 3: S, whilst filming the boat chase scene in late December 1991 at Hong Kong's Clear Water Bay, shooting was held up because Jackie got really sea sick! I'm surprised that this wasn't the case for the boat encounter in Dragons Forever!!

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Regardless of what's been said about making The Tuxedo, it actually turned out to save Jackie's life in the long run as Jackie was alternatively going to make a film called Nosebleed about a window cleaner who works at the World Trade Center who falls for a waitress who works at the restaurant on the top floor before (eerily enough) they team up to foil a plot to bomb the center. But Jackie had temporarily (now permanently) ditched the project due to commitments to work on The Tuxedo as he always wanted to learn special effects from Steven Spielberg.

Who am I? originally had a scene where Jackie was riding a rhino in the African portion of the film but the cameraman forgot to start rolling but it was never re-done as Jackie got so annoyed with the cameraman's lack of professionalism. To add salt into wounds, Jackie had sustained injuries during this scene.

In Last Hero in China, there's a subtle reference towards Project A. If you remember, the latter had a scene where the protagonists entered a nightclub which harbored a criminal. In this scene, there was a Chinese man with a moustache speaking mostly English and wearing Western clothing who was highly flamboyant - the actor is in this film playing a similar character.

Despite offering an array of classics, Run Run, Runjy and Runme were considered to be the Roger Cormans of China in that not only did they give many future stars and renowned directors their first jobs (allowing them the opportunity to learn the ropes by working on a multitude of productions in a few-frills environment) but due to their business ethic.

An average of seven features was always in production, while the dubbing rooms were shared on a tight schedule of three shifts daily. They could wrap up a production in three days; a big budget extravaganza might require a week. The films were often shot without a written script, more or less made up by the crew as they went along and edited directly on camera with few retakes. The emphasis was on 'fist and pillow' - violence and sex.

The budgeting was so cheap that a director was lucky if he earned half of the amount budgeted to pay for the fake blood required for the violent scenes. The whole cast and crews were underpaid too. This is confirmed by Run Run's direct approach to film-making:

"If audiences want violence, we give them violence. If they want sex, we give them sex. Whatever the audience wants, we'll give them."

Unsurprisingly, The Killer is as indicative in its post-dubbing as any Hong Kong cinema production. Chow Yun Fat may have post dubbed his own role, but in the instance of co-lead Danny Lee, another voice actor was called upon for post production dubbing duties. Long considered to have tones that were too shrill and/or harsh for a leading man, it wasn't until the mid 90s that Lee's actual voice was heard by HK audiences.

Despite popular belief based on pre-conceived notions, Jet Li had been offered various film opportunities since the age of 11 in 1974. He had been contacted by one of the biggest HK movie managers who would always say he was too young which is ironic considering the usage of child performers in films such as Leung Kar Yan's Sleeping Fist as well as Jet's later offerings Shaolin Temple 2: Kids from Shaolin and New Legend of Shaolin.

In 2001, there were rumours that Oliver Stone announced that he had come up with a project which was then going to star Jet. He would play an eleventh-century Chinese general after he was to have substituted for Asian singer/dancer and actor Aaron Kwok in this venture which Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley) might direct. The project, however, soon fizzled.

Many overseas film publications credited The Killer as a Tsui Hark film because of Tsui trying to assume credit post-success. By the time credit was paid where due, the rift had divided the two and irreparable damage had been done. Tsui would later receive his comeuppance as A Better Tomorrow 3: Love and Death in Saigon received moderate success too, in the same year as The Killer, as people just couldn't buy into the idea of Anita Mui being Chow Yun Fat's teacher (it's the Western equivalent of having Madonna teach Bruce Willis how to be a detective if he was to ever do a prequel to the Die Hard franchise).

One particular movie production that was to be made with Jet was another collaboration with Joel Silver (announced before Cradle 2 the Grave and The Matrix Reloaded were released). It was entitled First King - based on an idea provided by Li and would combine elements of action, suspense and the thriller genre. Though it seems unlikely that it'd ever get made considering Silver's comments surrounding the comparisons being made between the martial arts skills of Jet and Keanu Reeves. Unless Silver has copyrighted this idea, Li may be able to co-produce this with Luc Besson.

The scene in Last Hero in China where Jet dresses up as a rooster for the pseudo Lion Dance competition where he takes on a gang of hoodlums dressed up as a huge centipede, was influenced by the 1956 Wong Fei Hung film "Iron Cock Against Centipede" in which Kwan Tak Hing dresses up as a rooster to do battle with centipede-garbed evildoers.

Bruce Willis suggested to Jackie that they should make a movie together but there wasn't a script around that fit their personalities.

Shaolin Temple 2 is a loose remake of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. For plot ideas, the scriptwriters turned to its relatively young cast. The latter recalled mischievous experiences from their childhoods and told the scripters what it had been like to grow up in a Wushu school where martial arts was life's top priority. The screenwriters adapted the young performers' anecdotes about impish behaviour, enduring friendships (along with the joking and playfulness that accompanies that kinship) and created a tale set in ancient times (although the theme of jovial comradeship was geared to be timeless and universal).

In a privately conducted interview with Wong Jing, it was mentioned that Wong and Sammo Hung debated (if not argued) over the tone of the film. Hung wanted something more serious and Wong wished to undertake a satire of the resurgent wuxia sub-genre as well as a send-up of Tsui Hark's groundbreaking Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain.

It is worth noting how similar Moon Warriors is to King Hu's The Valiant Ones, in which Sammo played the lead bad guy and also choreographed; both share a plot that involves escorting government officials and treachery, the fights in the forest are almost identical in both films, with lots of sideways tracking shots, and both films end with the surviving characters standing over the graves of the fallen while a voiceover wraps up the story.

In Kung Fu Cult Master, the child actor who plays the young Jet Li played him in Tai Chi Master and both films utilize a similar style of building a transition from young Jet Li to old Jet Li i.e. when young Jet is in a certain environment, the camera moves to a certain area but when we finally get to see Jet again (in the same environment) it turns out he's now an adult.

Unlike what his association with Michael Wong (and his not-so-impressive performance in Romeo Must Die) would have us believe, Russel Wong was trained by Jet Li's Wushu coach Wu Bin. Michelle Yeoh is also someone of whom Wu Bin had coached in Wushu contrary to the belief that Yeoh never took martial arts lessons.

Ng See Yuen admitted that All for the Winner was less of a parody and more of a low budget cash-in on Jing's God of Gamblers.

Contrary to Western opinion, Kung Fu Cult Master was critically well-regarded in Hong Kong (if not being a big success). One critic described it as a Chinese version of a Terry Gilliam film. Also, the film was not a flop. The box office take was moderately successful (just not big enough to release a sequel).

The fights in Shanghai Noon were assisted by Biao (who even doubled as a cowboy). The director for it, Tom Dey, is a bigger fan of Hong Kong cinema than one at first may think. For the scene where Jackie escapes from the prison cell by wetting the piece of cloth, covering a chain with it (with the chain modified to make two handles) and wrapping the clothed chain around two prison door/cell bars to make a big space in order to escape, came from Jet Li's directorial debut 'Born to Defend'.

Mr. Nice Guy was originally suppose to be shot in New York. In the end shooting at Melbourne in Australia was more cost effective. Mina Hung (Joyce Godenzi - Sammo Hung's wife) is the first woman to be fed egg by Jackie when his character flicks pieces of omelette into the audience. Speaking of spouses, Richard Norton's wife is the woman who gets dumped in the coal pit at the beginning of the movie. Giancarlo's house was specially built for the movie at a cost of US$ 1.5 million. Because of the mess they left behind (from Giancarlo's demolished house), the production company was barred permanently from ever filming in that part of Australia again.

There's a legend that George Lucas showed Moon Warriors to his stunt team and told them to make The Phantom Menace's action similar in vein.

No Retreat, No Surrender was called Ring of Truth at first then later changed it got changed. There was a time in Keith's career that he thought every movie he made would be christened with the title No Retreat, No Surrender. Seasonal had initially called the other two movies by different titles (Raging Thunder and Blood Brothers) but the distributors wanted to call them No Retreat, No Surrender in order to capitalize on the success of the first one.

The essence of the storyline for Rumble in the Bronx (a cop who helps his uncle's grocery store in a seedy area) was meant to be a Police Story installment but the sequel continuity got thrown out of the window (ala Dragon Lord being a Young Master sequel originally entitled Young Master In Love).

John Hughes, responsible for films such as The Breakfast Club and Home Alone, wanted Jackie to star in "The Bee" - the script of which had Jackie as an architect who is trying to develop some land and is harassed by a bee that seems to have a mind of its own. The movie would have given him the chance to do some very funny stunts but Jackie wasn't sure that he wanted to make his return to Hollywood in a film where he was stupider than a bug (referring to his pre-Rush Hour stardom).

The working titles, during the conception stage of Rumble in the Bronx, were Showdown in Macao and Gang War in Kowloon. The difference in locations indicated in the titles meaning that they were unsure where the setting should be...that is until they thought of setting the film in America.

Initially, Jackie agreed to make Beverly Hills Ninja with Chris Farley, but later he withdrew before being replaced by Mortal Kombat star Robin Shou.

Michael Douglas had invited Jackie to play the part of a Japanese killer in his movie Black Rain. Jackie's opinion is that not only did the film make Asians look bad but why would his fans want to see him as a bad guy?

Though of course none of these offers compare, in terms of excitement, to the rumours that circulated on the net such as John Woo being considered to direct Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones or Jet Li being considered to play Jango Fett.

The idea behind shooting Rumble in the Bronx in the West was so that Jackie and Golden Harvest could get more offers from Hollywood. Rumble was also seen as a strategy to sell Jackie's old films that were to be released by U.S. distributors (think how Bruce Lee's old films were released in the States to sort of pre-sell Enter the Dragon).

Jackie chose not to play the villain, Wah Sing Su, in Lethal Weapon 4.

Rumble in the Bronx's plot of a Chinaman going to America only to find trouble was something that germinated in Chan's head ever since the completion of Big Brawl. Jackie's working title for it was "Why Me?". He thought of a story where he comes to America as a student from Hong Kong and tangles with a local gang. When he finally got back to Hong Kong and tried to sell the idea to Raymond Chow, he said no. Raymond said that Jackie was never on schedule, always over budget and that Hollywood wouldn't let him do his kind of film in America.

So plans to make "Why Me?" with Robert Clouse were scrapped as the Golden Harvest brain trust pulled the plug. But later on the idea resurfaced when it came to making what was meant to be Police Story 4. Essentially, the two storylines were combined minus Chan being a college student of course.

After High Risk was released in cinemas, Jackie Chan was often asked by the media, constantly, how he felt about the satire. More to the point, however, they asked him how accurate High Risk was in its portrayal of him and those around him. He was upset that Li appeared in the film (especially when you consider the bouquet story). Jet would later apologize to Jackie and they remained friends enough to do The Forbidden Kingdom.

From the 1990s and onwards (when Jing had more productive control in comparison to the early 80s), it seems like any Jing-affiliated film starring Sammo has the same element where his character gets stabbed in the stomach but continues to live on. This first happened in Pantyhose Hero then in Kung Fu Cult Master then later on in The Avenging Fist.

This could be Jing's playful way of saying that Sammo is so big that getting stabbed would be like being pierced by a sowing needle.

More to the point, this could be a reference to one of Jing's favourite Sammo Hung films (The Victim) as opposed to seeking vengeance over a friendly dispute over the tonal course of Kung Fu Cult Master.

High Risk achieved moderate success in Hong Kong and did reasonably well in Japan but it was really in Korea, Malaysia, India and Thailand that the film made a sizable impact (enough to make three times the budget which was roughly U.S. $ 5 million). This could be attributed to the fact that the film's Chinese audiences had mixed reactions about the way Jing depicted Chan.

[JOSEPH_KUBY]

After 1984, Kin Lung (Bruce Le if you've been following) disappeared for a while until coming out in 1992 as quite an accomplished film director and star of the critically acclaimed Comfort Women. Working under the name of Jackie Lui, he created a somewhat eclectic contribution to the CAT. III genre . The movie was described by one critic as "truly horrifying" and Kin Lung had definitely created an unforgettable product once again.

Unless Kin Lung is using an alias once again, it is unclear as to what is his current involvement, if any, he has with the movie industry. TV show 'Stop! Kung Fu' reported that Kin Lung had appeared in A Bollywood Bruce, but when and if this movie is actually released was not made clear. Perhaps, this Indian feature was confused with Katilon Ke Katil (a very old film where Bruce Le had a small role as an antagonist).

His last known feature was actually a Hollywood-produced 'mismatched buddy cops' movie called Double Take which starred Orlando Brown (from Evolution) and Eddie Griffin. Kin Lung worked on utility stunts though he was credited as Bruce Ly (the name of a Bruce Li imitator). Information of why he was credited as this fails to emerge.

Vince Lyn comments on when he read the Dragon's Den UK (the old version of this site for those who are newcomers) news report of Jackie not doing Armour of God 3 (this was back in 2005):

"Interestingly I came across your info on Jackie's next HK film and deciding not to do Armour of God 3. I was in talks sometime back about being brought back to star in the sequel. As my character didn't really die in Condor, they wanted to use him in the next one. Well it's still up in the air. The problem is the script as always. Who knows it might happen yet."

The script for Joseph Kuo's Dragon's Claws was adapted from a script that was scribed with the intent of Jackie Chan being the star.

Paul Li, a Bruce Lee historian in Hong Kong, relayed to John Little that Lee had told someone in the Hong Kong press that when his character reached the bottom of the pagoda, he would have his exit way obstructed by a Wing Chun practitioner who assumed the tong sao position. Lee would then draw himself together and fix the man with a deadly stare, causing the man to stumble backward in fear and trip 'n' fall. Bruce would then roll his eyes and leave the pagoda.

Despite Biao and Chan having a seemingly loyal and large fan base in Japan, Dragons Forever had flopped during it's theatrical release there (as well as under-performing in various parts of Asia) but had made a respectable gross in HK (bigger than My Lucky Stars). Quite a contrast to the situation with Jackie's Dragon Lord earlier on where the film didn't make as much money in HK as Golden Harvest expected but the Japanese market loved it (as well as the other Asian markets).

The reason for the demise (given the expectations) of Dragons Forever at the box office was due to the three brothers' fallout being common knowledge in Hong Kong - not a good omen. Fan reaction cemented the perception that it was an ill-fated production with a contrived sense of charm and a fabricated chemistry between its stars. From a Japanese perspective (and perhaps elsewhere in Asia as well), stunts couldn't erase the specter of Jackie in a suit and tie playing a borderline shyster lawyer who starts out defending an unscrupulous company run by gangsters but ends up on the side of righteousness.

Vinny Lyn on Y.W. Ping:

"I can say that my experiences of working with Yuen Woo Ping were great. And the wonderful thing is that we still stay in touch after all these years. It's because of Master Yuen and Fish Fong (his partner since Tiger Cage) that got me into HK films. I can't thank them enough. As World-famous as they have become I can still just pick up the phone anytime and speak with them. That you don't usually get to do. You'll work on a project for three months and then it's over until you meet up with the next set of people."

Vin goes on to say:

"I've stayed in touch with a handful from the HK days and they have become lifelong friends. It's because of friendships like Yuen and Fish that has made it possible to do many of the other wonderful things in my career. Another great friend is director/producer Alfred Cheung - a beautiful human being with the biggest heart. HK was an amazing part of my life and I wouldn't change a thing even with all the ups & downs and sometimes insanity to it all. There was also pure magic to it as well."

Jackie offered Donnie the villain role in Rush Hour 2 (John Lone's role). Donnie turned it down the role and accepted a similar offer in Shanghai Knights since he didn't want to be overshadowed by someone bigger in a modern day setting and felt a historical setting would be more fitting for both of them.

After the success of 1996's Young & Dangerous (directed by Andrew Lau), Black Mask was conceived and perceived as being a potential comic book hero franchise for Jet to capitalize on ala Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk, Superman and X Men. Unlike Johnnie To's Heroic Trio, Black Mask was actually based on a popular Hong Kong comic book of the same name as opposed to being a movie-originated creation.

Tsui Hark was brought on the scriptwriting and producing team due to his love of comic book literature. As alluded to before, it was envisioned that Black Mask (which placed the original comic book character into a new adventure) could be the cornerstone of a movie franchise.

It could be one that would provide Li with an ongoing and lucrative showcase for his well-honed martial arts skills in contemporary settings, as well as furthering the concept of his trademark of a modern-day hero who would be suffering once again from a turbulent dilemma.

With its blend of science fiction, the gothic and old-fashioned character archetypes, the upcoming project was seen as a high-energy adventure in which the swordplay of past times would be replaced by high-tech weaponry, gadgets and filled with the three b's (blood, bombs and bondage ) - all geared to appeal to young film-goers at home and abroad thus ensuring a potential international success.

Later, when the rough cut of Black Mask was assembled and Win's Film Entertainment's chief executive, Charles Heung, saw the completed footage, he was so impressed that he approved another HK$ 20 million (to the already high HK$ 45 million budget) to expand upon the movie's high-tech special effects. The film only grossed HK$ 13 million which prohibited Li to allowing himself to further the franchise via his casting as the title character.

Though the film's U.S. release, which earned US $ 12.5 million (twice the budget), propelled Hark to allowing himself to further the franchise via his casting as the director for the follow-up.

Bobby Samuels was persistent in his refusal for Sammo to go ahead with the 'black face' gags in Don't Give a Damn but Sammo claimed he was forced to do these scenes due to "Taiwanese investors" , although you have to wonder how far they would have gone with the "black humour" if Jackie was in the film (since having a very big star like him would ensure that they wouldn't need to resort to cheap commercialism). Given the commercial intentions, having Jackie in the film would have meant it would be a case of less pander (no racist jokes to cater to Taiwan) and less slander (no criticism from the politically correct).

Which reminds me, Don't Give a Damn was meant to be a three brothers reunion with Jackie playing the role Biao ended up playing and Biao playing the role that would eventually go to Takeshi Kaneshiro. Unfortunately, Jackie was too busy working on Rumble in the Bronx.

In an ideal world, there would have been a finale where the three brothers take on three blacks Peter Cunningham, Carl Scott and Bobby Samuels before having a three-on-one showdown with Michael Woods. Certainly pitting Hung against Woods was a missed opportunity of heavyweight action if there ever was one.

HK film critic Paul Fonoroff sites High Risk as his favourite Wong Jing film:

"It has all the usual Wong Jing trademarks, such as combining multiple genres but what really makes it outstanding is its hilarious parody of Jackie Chan. I think only Wong Jing could have the guts and the audacity to take on one of Hong Kong's biggest icons, and to do so with such viciousness and such humour ."

The white uniform Christian Bale wears in the final section of Equilibrium was inspired by Bruce Lee's mourning uniform in Fist of Fury, which in turn was inspired by David Chiang's outfit in Vengeance. Chang Cheh himself noted this, later in life, from an article entitled "Creating The Martial Arts Film and The Hong Kong Style":

"In Peking Opera, the costumes are very colourful but the heroes in an action scene invariably wore white to signify the image of a hero. If the characters were of low status, poor or were criminals, or were wounded after a fight, they invariably wore black. Thus, I created the image of Wang Yu as "the knight in white". Later when I made Vengeance, which was set in the early Republican period, my star David Chiang wore a white student uniform (or the Zhong Shan suit), which influenced Bruce Lee - he wore a similar style in Fist of Fury."

Comic actor Lee Kun (stocky funny guy from The Big Boss and Fist of Fury) was to be another accomplice of Lee's for Game of Death but not as one of the four accomplices assisting Lee for combat. His character is chosen for the mission because he's cheap, an alcoholic and a petty thief as well as a master locksmith, who would pick the lock to the temple to allow the martial artists inside. The character would not join the other members of the team, instead staying down below as lookout. Kareem's name was Mantis (contextually it makes sense when thinking about that scene in Enter The Dragon with the little mantis overpowering the big one).

Besides boosting the box office intake of the HK film industry due to the flailing economy of the city, Chow and Chan exchanged cameos (in regards to Gorgeous and King of Comedy) in both of their 1999 productions due to the fact that they were actually shot at the same locations. Chow said at a press conference that it was funny that so many people were waiting for Jackie to shoot his scene, it took almost a whole day but when it came to shooting Chow's scene in Gorgeous, it only took half an hour. Quite a contrast to their box office clout (throughout the 90s, Chow was No. 1 at the box office for 87% of the time).

There's a nice nod of the head to the opening of West Side Story in the way the boxing match in Broken Arrow opens up. John Woo has always spoken of his fondness for musicals, even back in his HK days. His use of music has always been very strong which is why much of Bullet in the Head had to get rescored due to how much footage was removed from the theatrical print. In fact, two Hollywood stars came to John Woo with the prospect of him directing musicals. Goldie Hawn wanted him to direct her in a filmic adaptation of Fosse's "Chicago" and John Travolta asked him to participate in a big-screen adaptation of "Phantom of the Opera" - both of which failed to materialize due to scheduling conflicts.

Despite how unusual this may sound, this is hardly surprising when one considers that music plays a very important role in all his films. He has claimed that he shoots his action set-pieces as if they are set to a musical tempo - validated by the use of songs during action sequences such as the opening to Bullet in the Head which features the hit tune "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees playing in the background and the usage of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" during the loft shootout in Face/Off. Woo had also done a successful box office hit in the '70s that was adapted from a Chinese opera entitled "The Emperor's Daughter" (the film was called Princess Chang Ping) despite the fact that the popularity of opera-based films was scant.

The actor who played the traitor to Chow Yun Fat's Ko Chun from the first God of Gamblers appears again in the third installment, though as a 1930's based character though he still plays a traitorous character - in fact he even kills a woman in the same way he did in the first film! He also plays a contradictory character in Crocodile Hunter. Ronald Wong plays a role in Crocodile Hunter that's similar to the one he had in God of Gamblers (he played Andy Lau's best friend in God of Gamblers).

[ASaroch]

Fascinating mate. Good to see Vincent Lyn was a DDUK fan - hope he enjoyed my review of Operation Condor as its one of my favourite JC films.

[JOSEPH_KUBY]

Superstition once again creeped up in a Golden Harvest production when Eric Tsang was in Yugoslavia during the making of Armour of God. During Jackie's time at the hospital, Eric turned on the television and there was a funeral on. Jackie was in the hospital room number 44 which is very bad luck in Chinese, since the sound for the number “4” sounds like “death.” So, in Eric's view, all the signs were very bad.

The doctor asked about Jackie, since his blood pressure and vital signs were always very strong. After a career in surgery, the doctor had never seen a guy with a body like Jackie's. He had a perfect body (which is why Jackie really was the next Bruce Lee ). So, Jackie really recovered more rapidly than the doctor predicted.

By the time Jackie was holidaying to recover from the accident, Eric Tsang quit because he felt that his directorial career was on a high and he couldn't afford to lose momentum. To understand the context of the accident, Eric had already shot a lot scenes without Jackie (bearing in mind that films aren't often shot in chronological order) and Jackie was only scheduled to come in and do close-ups but he wanted to redo one of the stunts.

A fair number of ambiguous stills can be seen of Jackie with the shorter hairdo, one still involved him at a table face-to-face with the antique collector at a public place (lounge area) and another with Jackie, Lola and Alan with backpacks at a port of some kind. Whether these are publicity shots or actual film footage remains to be answered.

There is an early cut of Armour of God which has been referred to as the "Just in case Jackie dies" version. This was supposedly filmed by Lau Kar Wing in case Jackie couldn't recover from his head injury or retired out of fear. It featured Alan Tam in more of a full starring role with some fight scenes as well. Two collectors have claimed to have seen this on TV in Europe.

This isn't really that much of a stretch as, in Christmas '91, Channel 4 had shown a print of Armour of God that was slightly different than the regular version. It contained more footage (i.e. in the same shot) where Jackie flies in the jet. There were embedded subtitles (i.e. not ones provided by the distributor or TV network) during the fashion shoot massacre sequence (which states that it takes place in Paris) and the scene where Alan Tam reads the sign on the dining hall door (the scene where he finds himself trapped in a room filled with monks).

Additionally, there are no opening credits (ala Apocalypse Now) and the final credit sequence only reveals the credits in the latter segments of the tree stunt out-takes (i.e. where Jackie is half-conscious with blood leaking out of his ear).

The aforementioned early cut wasn't an entirely different version, it was more like an alternate cut with a lot of the same footage found in the regular version. It just had more Alan Tam and at least one extra fight scene described as "Tam fighting a group of women assassins" whose action design, it appears, was later used by Jackie in the "Amazon" scene.

It's likely that the extra scene used the Amazonian women (or Yugoslavian women to be precise) that can be seen in the final fight. From the way it was described, it sounds more like an early cut of the film (i.e. unlike Heart of Dragon which had extra footage shot for the Japanese version after the HK release). As to why Lau Kar Wing was doing it, by having Lau film the fight scenes, it freed up Eric Tsang to direct the dramatic footage they would need.

Quoted from the KFC forum:

"Speaking of Armour, I saw something in the late 80s, when I went to Spain, that you might you be interested in for your Jackie article. It was a version of Armour with different scenes. After Chan flies away in the plane, it cuts to Jackie and Alan talking to this guy in a cafe about their mission. Instead of Chan finding Tam at the hotel, Tam travels around the city looking for Jackie and gets into some trouble."

The fan elaborates...

"The most interesting bit is when Tam finally gets to the hotel, there's a major fight scene when Tam fights a group of maids that are actually assassins. The scene looks very much the Amazon fight Jackie has towards the end of the film. The rest of the film was pretty much the same as we know it."

Another fan (one collector in Japan) had said pretty much the same thing and theorized that this was probably filmed by Wing and Tsang under the agenda of a "just in case Jackie dies" version of the film. Golden Harvest had sunk so much money in the movie already that it makes perfect sense they would have continued on without Jackie if they had to.

Given what was established in regards to the stills, there's a possibility that Jackie changed the structure of the film after Eric left. Raymond refused to have Jackie cut his hair due to believing that when Jackie shaved it, he lost his power so Jackie realized that his thicker hair style would contradict a lot of the footage that had taken up at least two thirds of the intended running time. Hence why Jackie would have reshaped the film's narrative to encompass Raymond's superstitious warning.

Which leads us to another matter, this is the only Jackie Chan-directed movie to be shot in 1.85 wide-screen. Jackie is known for normally filming in 2.35, the reason for the ratio change was that Jackie didn't want to entirely abandon the previously filmed footage. Rather than re-shooting the 1.85 scenes, or "super matting" them to 2.35, Chan decided to film the rest in 1.85.

A lot of footage was taken out of the film. The editing was done by Chan during a two month period. Most of the deleted footage consisted of choreography and stuntwork co-ordinated by Lau Kar Wing and Yuen Chung Heung (a.k.a. Danny Yuen Ching Yeung).

For those not familiar with Danny, he helped arrange fight choreography on Master of Zen which featured Louis Fan Siu Wong and Eddie Ko.

Curiously, in Jackie's autobiography, they are presented as the primary and secondary stunt coordinators for Armour of God (with Jackie listed as the tertiary one).

An amusing connotation can be made of the parody of Alan Tam's '70s band The Winners. Besides the fact that Alan Tam's action credentials were reduced when Jackie took over as director, you could make a point that he was making a swipe to former Winner member Kenny Bee. With Kenny playing the role Jackie was meant to play in Millionaire's Express, industry insider opinion was that Jackie was missing out on being in Sammo's movie (which was predicted as being the bigger movie although Armour of God made more money in '87 than Sammo's film did in '86).

There are a few Western actors from Armour of God who've made appearances in famous American films. They are Wayne Archer (who was in Blood Sport), Bo Svenson (who was in Kill Bill Vol. 2 as Reverend Harmony), Alex Rodine (who was in JFK as a White House man) and Gary Carter (who was in JFK as Bill Williams).

Notice the Hong Kong cinema connection, in that Wayne appeared in a film (shot in Hong Kong) starring an actor who played a villain in a Ng See Yuen production directed by Corey Yuen Kwai and that JFK was directed by a huge Hong Kong cinema fan. In the IMDB Armour of God listing, Wayne is listed as "fighter", Gary is listed as "Bearded Monk", Bo is also listed as a monk and Alex is listed as Bannon's servant. Maybe some scans for those who own all these films on DVD?

For those wondering as to whether the aforementioned action directors had assisted Jackie in the food hall encounter, one of the monks (Wayne Archer) had this to say about working on Armour of God:

"Jackie was the choreographer along with the JC stunt team for the food hall scene. No other fight choreographers involved."

Wayne mentions his opinion of Jackie and the differences in working on both Armour of God movies:

"Jackie was a very nice person when I knew him before his fame in the West but I have not seen him for many years so I can't say about now. Working on Armour of God was great fun with a good atmosphere but working on part 2 was not the same. I did not enjoy it at all but I had no problem with Jackie, just the assistants were a bunch of asses who were too scared of Jackie so it made the atmosphere bad."

His response as to whether he will work on the third Armour of God movie:

"I knew Jackie from the Dragon Lord days when he was not big in the West but now he has such a large fan base it is not the same anymore so he may be less approachable than he was but I'm not sure. No more movie making for me now, I'm done with all that. It was just fun for me in those days being such a fan of Hong Kong movies."

Armour of God's French title is Mister Dynamite.

It's a wonder that Eric didn't receive credit for being the second director since he had filmed the medieval footage as well as the fashion shoot massacre.

[JOSEPH_KUBY]

I'm sure Vin read your review.

I think Operation Condor was the best example of a cross-cultural HK movie.

A lot of today's film-makers (East and West) could learn a lot from it.

Jackie is the best when it comes to group fights.

It's a shame that Jackie hasn't directed since. If Operation Condor was his last film....period, then it was a great swansong.

Johnnie To was one of the assistant directors working on the film.

[JOSEPH_KUBY]

More on Operation Condor...

At the U.S. premiere of Operation Condor (when it was distributed by Miramax's company Dimension in New York City, July, 1997), Jackie was horrified to find the film's soundtrack, credit sequences and dialogue changed along with the film shown in an extensively edited edition. He went up to Vincent Lyn (who plays the scarred henchman) and asked "What did they do to my movie?"

To rub salt onto old wounds (or to twist the knife a little more depending on how you look at it), Jackie and Jet reportedly had a heated discussion regarding Jet agreeing to use Jackie's idea of an Eastern Western (or a Chinese equivalent to Red Sun) that was blatantly swiped for Once Upon a Time in China & America. Jackie claimed he had a project called Lion Goes West, with a similar concept to Jet's movie.

According to Jet's limo driver, they resolved their differences and they are in good standings with one another. This information came from a member of the KFC forum who attended the screening. He didn't notice the dispute himself though he pointed out that other people at the premiere mentioned the same incident.

Jeff Pruitt, the action director of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had some interesting things to say concerning the production of Armour of God 2: Operation Condor...

"On Armour of God 2, one of my stunt guys was fighting with Jackie. He said that when Jackie's stunt double fell off the chain and got hurt, they took the guy away and Jackie laid down and rubbed dirt on his face. Then the ever present behind-the-scenes camera moved in and shot Jackie pretending to be hurt. I sat in Stanley Tong's office and talked for hours with him one day on that very subject matter. This is why Stanley Tong did the jump between the buildings himself in Rumble In The Bronx and had Jackie stick his face out, and wave at the cameras after the stunt. It's not Jackie doesn't do stunts. It's just that the show would have to shut down if he was seriously injured and it's become too expensive for that. So this is how most of the dangerous stunts are done."

His other take on this subject:

"On Armour of God 2 (Operation Condor) one of my buddies (Ken Goodman in a fake beard) is fighting Jackie in the underground set. When Jackie's stunt double falls from the chain and gets hurt (which you see in the end credits) he said they scooped him up and took him to the doctor and then replaced him with Jackie himself on the ground. Jackie rubbed dirt on his face and then the behind-the-scenes film camera moved in to record him being "tended to" by worried crew guys."

What is almost unknown about the project are the injuries that occurred on the set. Chan kept these elements quiet, going so far as to fake injuries (such as the aforementioned fall from the chain in the outtakes). Sadly, one of the stuntmen lost his life while filming the elaborate car chase (the stuntman holding the hose in the warehouse).

In the end, it took 8 months to shoot. This long shooting schedule was due to a few factors, the most damaging was the lack of planning - even with Frankie Chan and Johnnie To being on board (along with Chen Chi Hwa) to assist Jackie after the Miracles fiasco. Other than the set pieces, the movie was created on the fly. Chan would keep expanding his ideas for a scene, until scenes that were only scheduled for a day would end up taking weeks.

Also typical of Chan was his compulsion to do numerous takes of everything. Even a single shot of Chan flinging a hair pin at one of the mercenaries took an amazing 70 takes to get right. When Chan wasn't holding up the production, the heat took over. Much of the film's equipment did not react well to the heat. Cameras would lock up, and film would be destroyed by the wind, sand and heat. Some days it was so bad the whole crew would spend most of the day at their hotel, playing water polo or Gameboy games.

Chen Chi Hwa is the old Chinese man Jackie speaks to when he meets the tribe at the beginning.

The actor who plays Adolf in Operation Condor is Sergio Leone regular Aldo Sambrell.

Jackie was able to materialize his East-meets-West concept via Who am I? for the amnesia/tribe storyline before doing Shanghai Noon which allowed people to draw comparisons and theories surrounding the similarities between the productions of both Sammo Hung and Tom Dey, for instance the use of Roger Yuan as a Chinese traitor. The Tsui Hark-produced feature underwent difficulties in blending the work habits and techniques of the Chinese and American film crews. Tsui had intended this film to be a crossover for both Hong Kong and American audiences but even though the film proved to be popular in Hong Kong, the film failed to find real (i.e. theatrical) distribution in the U.S.

Speaking of Kung Fu westerns, Sun Dragon starring Billy Chong was another film intended to be a crossover vehicle for the overseas market but the idea never really materialized. The film's production in Phoenix, Arizona was followed pretty closely by the local media with a local TV station shooting some footage of Billy; as well as Carl Scott doing a short interview for a radio station.

This was one of three U.S. junkets Eternal Films (the Hong Kong production company that made the film) did around the period of 1980. In this case, they came from New York to Phoenix. Although the exteriors and other scenes were filmed in Arizona, the majority of footage was, in fact, shot in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The lead villain (Louis Neglia) is played by a real life kickboxing champion, something which can't be said of Eternal Films' marketing attempts in the opening credits to give the impression that Billy is the 1979 World Kung Fu/Boxing champion which is to say, the least, entirely unsubstantiated!

The often hilarious English dubbing was actually done by the stars themselves, with both Billy and Carl supplying their own voices to the dubbed version which was released in America under the title "A Hard Way to Die".

For Shanghai Noon, there was going to be a Drunken Master 2 homage with Jackie doing Drunken Boxing but the idea was scrapped due to lack of time for said scene so, instead, the director (Tom Dey) went with the blowing bubbles idea taken from the finale of DM 2 as seen in the final presentation during the brothel scene.

Supercop (in terms of ratio of budget to box office) ended up being a startling disappointment in Hong Kong. It made less than Police Story 2 which, unlike popular consensus would tell you, actually made more than PS part one despite being regarded as an inferior sequel. Ironically, it was Stephen Chow's 'Justice, My Foot' which caught the public's imagination. One theory is that moviegoers were getting weary of police thrillers in general, no matter how spectacular or insane the stunts. Interestingly, there was a minor resurgence of good old-fashioned chopsocky Kung Fu around the time Supercop was released. Which just goes to show that even the most loyal audience can be fickle.

Bruce Lee's Russian nemesis in Fist of Fury, Bob Baker, was said to be an ex-Oakland Jeet Kune Do student - in actual fact he was not. Even though it's true that he came from Stockton (in California), no-one (of Bruce's friends and students) ever heard of Baker, and unlike appearances in Bruce's subsequent films by known martial arts champions like Chuck Norris and Bob Wall, prior to his appearance in Fist of Fury, Baker was relatively unknown to the martial arts community. In fact, prior to Baker's appearance in Lee's second film, it would appear from all accounts that the two men were strangers.

The truth is that Lee's employment of Baker had nothing to do with Baker's acting ability or his martial arts skills. According to Linda Lee, right up to the time of her husband's death, Baker was the man responsible for bringing assorted drug contraband into Hong Kong to support Bruce's habits. On 28th February 1973, Bruce introduced his international gofer Baker as his bodyguard when he had appeared as guest of honour to present student awards (sports day prizes) at St. Francis Xavier College.

Even though Police Story 3: Supercop became the highest grossing film in Taiwanese history, the same thing can't be said for the level of success the film attained in Hong Kong. Whilst the film did moderately well (HK$ 32 million - standard hit) and the film more than made up for its costs with its U.S. release by Miramax (where it made approximately U.S. $ 16 million), it wasn't the huge Stephen Chow-style money-maker the filmmakers were hoping for (i.e. HK$ 40 - 50 million).

The elements were there: Jackie, Michelle, Bill Tung, Maggie Cheung, international locations, a James Bond-style scenario, Western actors, a bit of English dialogue, gunplay, pyrotechnics, vehicle stunts, daredevil stuntwork and Kung Fu. So naturally, you would think the Hong Kong audience would have eaten it up ala God of Gamblers 4: The Return, no?...that's right - no.

Lam Ching Ying never appeared in the Western remake of Mr. Vampire (entitled Demon Hunters) because he was too busy, which prompted producer David Chan to hire Yuen Wah. Also, Wah was considered a more commercially appealing option to Western audiences than Lam Ching Ying (because Wah was Bruce Lee's stunt {or acrobatic} double in three of his films).

After one week in production, Tanya Roberts and Jack Scalia were demanding the comforts of Hollywood on a Hong Kong budget. Golden Harvest's Raymond Chow gladly sent them packing. According to a European fan, there was a brief piece on a European version of Entertainment Tonight that showed Tanya chased though the woods and showed Wah in the Taoist outfit.

Contrary to popular assumption, there are many reasons why Lam Ching Ying had no problem with westerners at all. In his early career he had many movies with Americans in co-production. Later on he worked with Cynthia Rothrock, in Prince of the Sun, and she confirmed that Lam had no problem with Americans. He sent his children to America to study there and his original plan was to follow them a bit later. He wanted to spend his elder years there. Finally and sadly, he is buried there, where his children still are.

Despite Jet Li's legendary mastery of the martial arts, he was criticized because of his historically inaccurate cinematic fighting. The magazine Hong Kong Film Connection says:

"Jet Li had now played three of the most prominent characters in Kung Fu history - Wong Fei Hung, Hung Hsi Kwan and Fong Sai Yuk. All three were Hung Gar stylists. Not once has Jet Li used Hung Gar in any of his performances. Hung Hsi Kwan was famous for his skill with the staff. In New Legend of Shaolin, Jet Li's take on Hung Hsi Kwan, he fights with a spear. Hung Gar is famous for low stances, iron forearms and the Tiger & Crane fists. Jet Li used high kicks, no animal forms and the "no shadow kick" which was a true movement but was instead performed as a stunt using wires to carry him. Completely inappropriate and totally inaccurate."

Actually, Jet performed drunken boxing in Last Hero in China though he is to be blamed for the use of the spear in New Legend of Shaolin as he was the executive producer and could have easily told director/screenwriter Wong Jing for the character to stick to his traditional roots.

When describing the development of his new movie, "Josiah's Canon" for Twentieth Century Fox, director Brett Ratner explained that even though the script is important for a movie, it's not necessarily crucial nowadays, as he acknowledged when talking about the script for Rush Hour:

"There were five different scripts, all buddy-cop movies and the one that became Rush Hour was the worst of the five. But it fits the actors well, and so we made that one".